Enter Shikari’s Australian tour is kicking off the week, giving local fans the first chance to experience material from their latest album Lose Your Self in a live setting.
Released earlier this year, the record pushes deeper into the British band’s experimental instincts while still holding onto the urgency and emotion that has defined them since the mid-2000s.
Ahead of the tour, drummer Rob Rolfe spoke with Tone Deaf about the songs he loves playing live, the tracks from Lose Your Self he’s most excited to unleash in Australia, and why some fan favourites continue to mean so much to the band all these years later.
“Find Out the Hard Way” from Lose Your Self
It’s a no-brainer. Find out the hard way. It’s the one that we have pushed for radio plays and the one that we recorded the music video for. So I think if there’s any track that an audience is going to have heard already from this album, it was most likely to be that one.
“The Flick Of A Switch I.” from Lose Your Self
We’re playing “The Flick of a Switch I.”. There’s “The Flick of a Switch I.” and “The Flick of a Switch II.” on the album. And I really wanted to play the second, to be honest. I thought because it’s this one sort of just big, long, eerie intro with a fucking heavy section and then it finishes and that’s kind of it. There’s no sort of nice classic pop structure of verse chorus. And I thought we’d just kick the roof off the place and leave everyone with shit and piss in their pants kind of thing.
But no, actually I think it was the better decision going with “Flick I.” because it’s the more classic song structure. But I mean, I talk about it like it’s the lesser song. It’s absolutely not. It’s an absolute banger of a song. And from the couple of shows that we’ve played it so far, it seems to be going down, I can say better than some of the songs that we’ve been playing for 20 years now. So getting that kind of reaction from immediate reaction from audiences that we can see, because you don’t have a view into people’s lives when they’re hearing the music just through their headphones. So how we can gauge exactly how an audience feels about the music that we’ve released recently is live.
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When we first played it and the audience were really kicking off, Chris and I sort of gave each other some eyes on stage like, ‘Whoa, this is cool. These people know this’. They’ve literally had the album for four days and they’re absolutely kicking off about it.
Well, I’ll take the new ones out of it. This is only from albums one to seven.
“Zzzonked” from Common Dreads
Well, one of my favourites is “Zzzonked” because it’s actually from Common Dreads, our second album. So we’ve been playing it for decades, but it’s so fun. For me, behind the drums, it’s a really easy one. Well, I say that there are some fun, weird metal bits at the beginning to play that are sort of all weird. I’m not sure if they’re weird. They’re not quite weird time signatures, but it’s sort of strange and awkward parts, but I’ve played them so long now that I’m very comfortable with them.
And then it just goes into this long section where I’m literally just going, boom, cat, boom, cat, boom, cat, just nice and simple. I don’t have to think about it too much, but it’s such a groove, that section of the song, especially with what the rest of the instrumentation is playing. And I see the audience getting down to it like dancing and there’s that big heavy bit that people will rock out to and then it goes into this nice comfortable bounce sort of section where everyone can bust out and move on the dance floor sort of thing.
And so it’s fun to watch them and then finishes on a insanely heavy part where people just lose their shit. So that’s “Zzzonked” to be one for me.
“Sorry You’re Not a Winner” from Take to the Skies
There’s one that isn’t necessarily my favourite to play live because we’ve played it so much that it’s actually quite tiresome for us on stage now, but I have to mention it because without it, I don’t think we’d be where we are, “Sorry You’re Not a Winner”. That song was actually meant to be a B-side. We wanted it to be a B-side for when it first came out. The A-side was going to be “OK, Time for Plan B”. And our manager persuaded us to switch it and I suppose it’s a good thing we did, but that song seems to almost define a generation or like so many people have such a nostalgia for that song or it seems to mean a lot for that time in their lives. And the three claps in that song have done so much for us as a band.
Something so simple, just three claps to mean so much to so many people. And it’s done a lot for us as a band. So even though yeah, we’re bored of playing it by now and we would love to not have to play it, I appreciate it because I appreciate what it means for us as a band and what it’s done for us.
“Undercover Agents” from The Spark
“Undercover Agents” is one of our softer songs, more melodic songs as opposed to the heavier or dancier set of songs and it’s more kind of guitar, melodic guitar bass. And when playing it live, there’s a lot for me to think about and a lot going on. So, I start off with some things going on my electronic pad, these little blips and blops noises. And then when it comes to playing the full main body of the song and when the drums kick in, the live drums kick in, there’s a lot of fills integrated within the beat. And when I first wrote it, I was like, ‘Oh, this is great’. And then it came to having to play it live and I’m like, ‘Fuck, what did I do? Why did I do this to myself having to try and learn these… My hands are all over the kit’. I’ve only got two hands and they’re having to work overtime to hit all the right drums in the right places at the right time. And I don’t always get it, but I try.
And it’s one of those ones that seems to be, again, a fan favourite to hear. I don’t think I realised it because it’s not one of the ones where, or maybe it’s just because I’m concentrating so much on playing the parts and looking at my drums that I don’t actually look at the audience when I’m playing it, but it’s not necessarily one of the ones where it really kicks off. It doesn’t blow the roof off the place with the audience dancing because it’s not that kind of song. But I think it was that album’s birthday recently and I just did a post saying, ‘Oh, what’s your favourite track from this album?’ And the majority of the answers that I got were “Undercover Agents”. And I was really surprised because it’s not the reaction that I necessarily saw live. So I suppose people can really enjoy and appreciate music watching it live without having to go nuts for it.
So that was really nice to hear and it’s a lovely song. And so, one part of me is, yeah, it’s fun to play, but also having done having that got that quick bit of feedback on social media, it’s nice to know that we’re playing a song that a lot of people really appreciate and engage.
For complete tour and ticket information, see here.
ENTER SHIKARI AUSTRALIAN TOUR 2026
with special guests Grandson
Thursday, May 14th
Metropolis, Fremantle WA
Saturday, May 16th
Hindley St Music Hall, Adelaide SA
Sunday, May 17th
Forum, Melbourne VIC
Tuesday, May 19th
Pier Bandroom, Frankston VIC
Thursday, May 21st
King St Bandroom, Newcastle NSW
Friday, May 22nd
Enmore Theatre, Sydney NSW
Saturday, May 23rd
The Tivoli, Brisbane QLD
Sunday, May 24th
Blackflag Brewing, Coolum QLD*
*grandson not appearing
